General Paterson wants YOU to fight the Great Ash War

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As I watched Owen Paterson, the rather shouty new Environment Secretary,
yesterday, I was reminded of the famous 1914 army recruitment poster
featuring Lord Kitchener, his moustache magnificent, his finger pointing
straight out. “Your country needs you!” it blares at us.

That was the Great War, this is the Great Ash War, brought on by the
emergence of ash dieback disease, blown in from Europe (of course). The
first call for a people’s army to see the forest for the trees came from the
Tory Kris Hopkins, a former member of The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment who,
unusually in the